Project title: Effect of tourist activity on air quality

Team: CienciasdoSon3

Porto do Son   Porto do Son   Spain   2 Student’s age: 16-17 years old

Can the tourist activity focused on the summer affect the quality of air?

Porto do Son is a small town on the Barbanza Peninsula in Galicia, with about 9,200 inhabitants. However, the summer months there is a large influx of tourists: in 2016, a local government agency estimated that in the summer season the population of Porto do Son reaches 17,000. In this study we want to determine if this great summer tourist activity can affect air quality. For this we have analyzed measurements of NO2 in the air obtained by the Copernicus satellites.
We compare NO2 concentration data from the year 2020 (year of confinement due to COVID) with an average value of NO2 in “normal” years (2019, 2021 and 2022). Taking these data into account, and the hotel data from the province of A Coruña before, during and after 2020, we consider that the relationship between the mobility of people in Porto do Son and the concentration of NO2 is clear.

– NO2 concentrations in the months of March, April and May 2020 were not lower than the average values ​​of 2019, 2021 and 2022 (figure 1) A possible explanation for this fact could be that since it is a small town, its daily mobility in vehicles has not changed excessively in that time interval.
– In the months of June, July and August 2020, a lower concentration of NO2 in the air is observed (compared to the average value of 2019, 2021 and 2022) (figure 1). This may relate to the lower number of tourists in the summer of 2020. Figure 2 shows the data from the National Institute of Statistics corresponding to the province of La Coruña. This graph clearly shows a lower number of hotel stays in the province of La Coruña in the summer of 2020 (June, July and August), compared to similar data from the previous and subsequent years.
– We consider that this proves the effect of mobility (increase in tourists) on the concentration of NO2 in the air.

– We believe that the quality of the air and the natural environment in general should be one of the tourist attractions of this area. For this reason, and for the health of the habitual inhabitants of the area, these air quality parameters must be studied and controlled.
– We believe that the local government should promote environmentally friendly tourism. Some mechanisms that we believe could be implemented are:
Facilitate mobility to the beach areas by creating safe urban routes for transit on foot or by bicycle.
Facilitate the use of rental bicycles or even electric bicycles.

Download project poster PDF

Projects are created by the teams and they take the full responsibility of the shared data.
← All projects